Week 3 - Defining Memory

As editor of the book Defining Memory, Amy K. Levin was tasked with drawing together essays to discuss ‘local museums and the construction of history in America’s changing communities.’  One of the arguments recurring throughout the essays is Glassberg’s idea of  ‘sense of place’.  Local museums are often created because of their particular attachment within a community.  For example, the Old Cowtown Museum and the Living Museum at Arthurdale, WV are re-creations of a specific place in a particular period of time.  Sites like these play to the memories of the local citizens as well as to those of the tourists who come to see what used to be.  Other museums discussed in Defining Memory, which elaborate on the theme of place, are Colonial Williamsburg and the House of the Seven Gables. 

The use of individual essays focused on separate museums is effective in making this argument.  The number of different museums as well as the wide range of topics, i.e. wild west, Louisiana politics, and St. Louis’ City Museum of architecture to mention only three, helps to make the point that local interest is the driving force for local museums.   The structure of the book with clear divisions and introductions to each section make the point even stronger.  Whether the museum is a living recreation of a city or way of life or a collection of oddities from local business, industry, or agriculture, it is the locale that binds the artifacts together. 

Defining Memory is strengthened by its variety and by the number of individual authors who have lent their expertise to the project.  The structure of the book also strengthens the whole by both providing individual, stand alone essays and by linking those by way of the introductions to each section and the introduction and conclusion provided by Ms. Levin.  The book works both as a cohesive whole discussing small local museums and as a resource for individual museums.  The final essay, although interesting in its own right, seems somewhat tacked on and does not further the arguments and ideas of the other essays.  Levin’s explanation of when the volume was finished makes this more forgivable, but in some ways detracted from the cohesiveness of the other essays.  But while I feel its placement at the end of this volume is somewhat awkward, the discussion of how unexpected and tragic events adjust the viewpoints of museum curators, founders, and patrons is very intriguing.  It would be worthy of a volume of essays of its own.